What You Don't Know
by ImpalaLove
Summary: Tag to 9x13 so SPOILERS for that last scene. First chapter is Dean's POV. Second chapter is Sam's. Credit to Cactus101 once again for the inspiration- you're a terrible influence, I should be doing homework P. Oops. Rated for language.
1. Chapter 1

**So I was basically emotionally compromised from that last scene of 9x13 and so I thought to myself "hey, let's try to find a positive spin on this." Nope. NOPE. Couldn't find it. This is what happened instead. Oops. Rated for some bad words. **

**9X13 Tag: Dean POV**

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What You Don't Know

I watch you walk away (that huge stride of yours) and part of me wants so badly to stop you. To grab you by the wrist and twist hard enough that you feel just a little bit of the agony that now throbs sharply against my chest, pulsing out a violent beat. I want you to see how deep your words cut, how big the hole you've dug is. How much it bleeds. But I don't make a move in your direction. Frozen in place. And if I'm honest with myself, it's more than just the shock that keeps me nailed to the floor. It's the realization that I really _don't_ want to hurt you. Not even a little bit. I don't want you to catch even a _glimpse_ of what I feel. I'm glad you'll never know.

You will never know about all the things I gave up for you, all the times I told myself to stop wanting so that I could give instead. You didn't see the tears I cried for Mom and Dad and lost innocence, because I needed you to keep yours. To hold onto it for as long as you possibly could. And you'll never know my dreams. The ones I stomped over and destroyed, long before they ever had a chance to leave the ground. Because I barely remember them myself and because they never mattered to me as much as you did...do.

You weren't there for Dad's drunken confessions, his whispered pleas for a life so different from the one we led. You already resented him enough, and I couldn't bear the thought of you seeing that weakness, that pit of despair he always carried within him. And it scares me to know that you can so easily see its duplicate, the one that resides inside of me now. I don't know when you got so good at looking past my smirk and seeing the truth, that gaping hole of black, but I wish you had never caught on. I wish my lame coverups worked and I wish I could fill in the emptiness behind my eyes so that you would remain oblivious. Because then maybe you would understand that you still don't have the whole picture. You still don't have a fucking clue.

You can never comprehend the nights I stayed awake and listened to your breathing, just to reassure myself that you were still there. That you wouldn't leave me like everyone else did.

You don't know about the nightmare I still see every time I close my eyes. You don't understand the horrors that flash like lightning across the darkest corners of my mind, illuminating them with something worse than death, worse than the darkness itself. I know you've seen Hell and I know you've seen destruction, but you do not know what it is to be a big brother. You do not know what it means to choose to give your life away. To leave your own fears in the wind and become a shelter from that ceaseless storm, the one that rages just inside your ribcage and jostles your pounding heart until you learn how to conquer it. Until you learn how to be strong enough. To keep your heart beating for that one, sole purpose. For the heart that beats right beside your own.

And I'm so grateful. So goddamn grateful that you've never needed to see all the things that I have seen. I never wanted that for you, and I never resented any of the things I couldn't have if it meant that you would get them instead. God I'm so glad that your life doesn't revolve around this one, impossible, insurmountable mission. The one that rules your every decision, demands every last ounce of your attention and bleeds you dry. Because that means you'll never have to know how badly it hurts when the one you gave up everything for, the one you'd never let fall, has watched as the floor crumbles beneath your feet. Has taken the last dredges of your sanity and splattered them across an already bloody canvas, staining it in a despair that drips easily, too easily, into your contracting lungs.

But I guess that's okay, in a way. I guess I can stop breathing now. Let the fluid fill my lungs and stop my beating heart, the one with the storm still raging inside. Just as long as you won't have to know what any of it means. Just as long as you won't have to watch your words rip me apart from the inside out, twisting my insides until the world I'd known shatters, the splinters embedding themselves in my already ruined heart. You don't have to know about any of it.

Maybe I can protect you from this too. Just one last time.

Old habits die hard.

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**So yeah, here is my outlet for that STUPID last scene of 9x13 and it is a big pool of angst and that's about it. Sorry. Ugh. These boys, man. Please let me know what you thought if you've got time- reviews are fantastic. Either way, thank you for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Alright so I know there's a little bit of Sam hate going on right now (I'm not too pleased with our lovely Moose at the moment) and I kind of wanted to explore his head for a little bit. So here's Sam's POV of the last scene of 9x13. **

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What _You_ Don't Know

I'm exhausted, but there's no way I'm sleeping now. Not after that conversation. I'm staring at the ceiling half wishing I could hear you breathing on the bed beside me, but life in motels isn't always a constant for us anymore and so instead it's too quiet and all I can picture is your shattered expression staring back at me. _That look_. Begging me to take the words back. But I can't Dean. I can't. Because no matter how bad those words hurt, they needed to be said. You needed to hear them. Maybe not in the exact way I said them, but you needed to know. You needed to understand that there is so much you don't understand.

You don't understand how every decision you make on my behalf makes the world shift beneath my feet, makes me feel like I'm standing in the middle of a frozen pond while the ice cracks around me. You don't know how hard I've fought to force my way out from under the thumb of those who have tried to control me for my entire life, only to be buried once more under another influence I can never seem to shake. It started with Dad. Then it was Azazel and the demon blood. Then Meg, Ruby. Lucifer. And now Gadreel. I've shared my head with so many monsters that sometimes I wonder if there's any part of me left untouched, unmarred by their evil. I'm pretty sure there isn't.

And that's why, if the situation were reversed, I would've let you go. It would've been the hardest decision of my life, but I would let you go because I don't ever want you to know what it feels like to be locked inside your own head with no escape. To have to feel the crunch of your brother's bones against your unwilling fists. To have to watch yourself tear apart the ones you love with no way to stop it and no way to block it out. All you can do is scream inside your own head and wish you were already dead. I hope you never know what that feels like. What that costs.

I've tried so many times to tell you how much you mean to me, how much you're worth. But still, you just don't fucking get it. You don't understand that you've got so much more to offer than just being my protector. Your value is not determined by how often you stitch up my bleeding wounds or repair my broken resolve, though I'm grateful for every attempt, every sleepless night spent making sure I never stop breathing. But you've set yourself up for failure and now you're too wrapped up in this responsibility to see that this time, I was already too far gone. This time, I didn't want to be saved.

I know that terrifies you. I know how much you've lost, how much you would give if it meant you never had to lose again. But we're not immortal and we're not unbreakable and everything comes to an end. And what you don't know is that no matter who goes first, no matter how it ends, you will never be alone.

So yeah, I know you think it's your job, your one mission in this life to be my savior. But what you don't know is that there's a limit to that duty. There's a point where "saving" me only does more damage than good. There's a point where death means salvation.

And we're way past it.

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**Rawr. Okay let me know what you thought if you've got time. Otherwise thank you so much for reading as always! **


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